Trendspotting: Kitchen Science

Cutting-edge chefs are thinking like scientistswhether they're inventing brand-new flavors in state-of-the-art laboratories or cooking with centrifuges. Here, how their kitchen science innovations are bringing us better chocolate, calorie-free food and a tastier waffle.

More High-Tech Tools

Food scientist Dave Arnold on his futuristic kitchen.

1. Rotary Evaporator "Labs use this $12,000 piece of equipment to distill solvents; I use it to make amazing cocktails, like a clear chocolate liqueur that's not too sweet and nonspicy habanero vodka."

2. Liquid Nitrogen "A lot of chefs make ice cream with it, but I also turn fresh herbs into fine powder, separate citrus segments into jewel-like pieces, and freeze alcohol to make liquid-centered orbs."

3. Whipped Cream Siphons "You can infuse flavors into liquor almost instantly with a $45 iSi Cream Whipper. Briefly: Put liquor and almost any food into the whipper, charge it with the nitrous oxide cartridge, swirl it for a minute, vent, strain and drink. You can use seeds, herbs, spices, fruits, cocoa nibs."

4. Pressure Cooker "Home cooks use it to save time, but I like it for flavor modification. Pressure-cooked mustard seeds absorb lots of liquid, so they get soft, and the high heat destroys the pungent notes. I eat them by the spoonful. Same with garlic: It gets a deep flavor, but without giving you the garlic sweats."

5. Next Big Inventions "I'm in the process of starting a new company with chef David Chang to build equipment. First up: a sturdy, more affordable rotary evaporator. But I also want to tackle projects with wider applications, like a salad spinner that doesn't leak or break and a super-powerful blender."

Kitchen Science: Food & Flavors

Recipes

Chilled Cucumber SoupChef Eric Skokan of Boulder, Colorado's Black Cat grows hundreds of vegetables at his farm, analyzing each variety for its best use. He prefers the Zagross Persian cucumber for this tangy soup.

Yeasty WafflesJeff Potter offers a waffle recipe made with yeast instead of baking powder in his book, Cooking for Geeks. A yeast enzyme called zymase helps make the waffles rich and sweet.

Dessert Lab

Jimmy Fallon talks about the breakthrough behind his own ice cream flavor.

"I was really interested in using potato chips, but no one at Ben & Jerry's could figure out how to keep them crispy in ice cream. Then their food lab discovered that if you crush kettle chips and dip them in chocolate, they stay crispy. It's salty, it's sweet, it's so cool!"Courtesy of Oriol Balaguer

Innovations in Chocolate

Cacao Tech "Chocolate technology is way behind wine, beer and coffee," says Brad Kintzer of San Francisco's Tcho Chocolate. Tcho is trying to catch up by installing satellite labs on cacao farms in Peru and Ecuador. Kintzer can test beans' fermentation levels and bitterness before producers ship them to the US, helping farmers tailor their operations to Tcho's specifications. tcho.com.

Futuristic Vision While working at Spain's El Bulli, pastry chef Oriol Balaguer combined eight chocolate textures into a single dessert. Now he's bringing avant-garde innovation to his namesake line, newly available at NYC's Borne Confections. He specializes in wild flavors (hazelnut praline with Pop Rocks) and futuristic shapes, like his Atomic Egg (photo), sprayed with cocoa butter. borneconfections.com.